Who is more accountable, students or their schools?

The Oregon Department of Education has sanctioned three Portland-area school districts for suspending and expelling disproportionately high numbers of their students of color in special education programs ("Portland-area schools hit for minority stats," July 8). In addition to sanctions against Portland, Tigard-Tualatin and Beaverton school districts this year, Eugene and Woodburn have also been sanctioned for disproportionate discipline in the past four years.

Many have voiced criticism against these penalties. We must recognize, however, that the state's education department is responsible for ensuring that school districts follow the law and use their discretion appropriately. Disciplinary actions taken by schools have a profound effect upon the future of students, an effect that is too often detrimental to the students, their schools and to the community. We should be very concerned both about the overuse of suspension and expulsion and by the disproportionate impact on students of color.

On July 16, The Oregonian Community News weekly published online comments that had been made about the original story ("Join the conversation"). Several anonymous cyber-commentators argued that student suspensions and expulsions must have been justified based upon student behavior and dismissed the idea that school districts could be culpable.

Youth, Rights & Justice has represented thousands of students in local public schools, including many who have been denied special education services and those who have faced suspension or expulsion. Most of our clients are children in foster care.

Details and specific facts about student behavior provide critical context. Research has shown that cultural differences between teachers and students increase the chances that teachers will perceive student behaviors as insubordinate or threatening. Students who are labeled "violent" have included elementary students who draw crude pictures of guns, for example.

Rather than respond to these behaviors as threatening, it is the role of educators to understand what the student is trying to communicate, particularly when a student has known or suspected disabilities. While schools cannot be all things to all students, they also should not punish students because of the special needs or special burdens they carry with them into the classroom.

School districts know the rules, and some of them have faced multiple sanctions over time. Should these institutions, comprised of highly educated adults, somehow be held less responsible and less accountable for their actions than their students?

Some comments on the original story argued that race is no longer a factor that should be considered in looking at student outcomes. Some self-described, but anonymous, educators opined that racial minorities were disciplined more often simply because they misbehave more often.

There is, however, a large body of research that has established for many years now that minority students do not misbehave at higher rates than their white peers. Our organization published a report in 2004, "Eliminating the Achievement Gap: Reducing Minority Overrepresentation in School Discipline," highlighting this fact and documenting more effective approaches to student achievement that have been used in many Oregon schools.

While the public may assume that suspensions and expulsions are reserved for the most egregious behavior, voluminous data instead show that students of color are excluded more often for minor offenses at the discretion of school personnel, and that the vast majority of school suspensions and expulsions are not imposed for violence, drugs or other major infractions.

A new study, "Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study on How School Discipline Relates to Students' Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement," looked at 1 million students in the state of Texas and followed them from the seventh through the 12th grades. It found that 26 percent of the African-American students had been suspended, while less than 10 percent of white students received out-of-school suspensions.

At the same time, the study found that more than 97 percent of disciplinary actions were discretionary on the part of school officials, i.e., not mandated by law. The study also uncovered wide variability from school to school and district to district in the rates of discipline overall and the rates of discipline for minority students, showing that schools are ultimately responsible for their responses to students who are struggling.

Discrimination based upon race is but one concern. Portland Public Schools has publicly stated that the overuse of suspension and expulsion has been a problem in general and that they intend to move toward policies that call for school exclusion only as a last resort.

There is ample evidence that suspension and expulsion are largely ineffective tools for improving student behavior and achievement. Rather than teaching students a lesson, exclusionary discipline instead increases the likelihood that students will fall behind and eventually drop out. These are the students most likely to end up in our juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Schools also have additional obligations under special education and other civil rights laws to protect students with disabilities from inappropriate suspension and expulsion and to promote their rights to a "free and appropriate public education." For many of these students, punishment is particularly inappropriate and ineffective (and frequently illegal).

The school districts that have been sanctioned surely know all of this, and they should be held accountable to improve their behavior. Mark McKechnie is the executive director of Youth, Rights & Justice, Attorneys at Law, a nonprofit organization that represents children and youth in the juvenile court system and in public schools.